Fertile Ground is a photographic project that captures the beauty and power of a unique landscape that every year produces two-thirds of the fruits, vegetables and nuts consumed by some 340 million Americans.
The geometries of light and dark feature bucolic arrays of vegetable and fruit seedlings, peeking through plastic pathways or protected by shimmering white hoop houses, along well irrigated hillsides bathed in coastal fog. In the tradition of New Topographics, the compellingly hyper-functional landscape also raises fundamental societal questions in the context of divisive national debate on climate change, resource allocation and immigration.
The project, which began with our family’s long standing passion for berry picking, is printed in black and white on Kozo paper and hand coated and sealed with a wax encaustic to convey our shared sense of the promise and vulnerability of California’s 77,000 “factories in the field”.
